SXSW Dreams Hit a Bump in the Road and Unrelated Things..

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile, but a lot has been happening and things only look to get crazier in the near future.

First up, the quest to present my ideas about how to build healthcare apps on the Twitter platform hit a little bump in the road. The first batch of panels and presentations that have been accepted were announced in late September, and mine was not among them. Although I’m obviously not thrilled about this, it in no way deters me from what I’m working on. I’ve said from the beginning that I’m doing this regardless of whether or not SXSW selects me to speak at the 2011 SXSW Interactive Festival. I’m also encouraged by this part of their latest email to me:

“Please do NOT assume that the titles on the website represent what we think are the best ideas from the PanelPicker. The first batch of programming announcements merely represents the first batch of programming announcements — nothing more, nothing less. In fact, we intentionally save some of our favorite proposals for the second batch of panel announcements, which is scheduled for Monday, November 8.”

In other news…

I spent last week in Houston attending the Anderson Network cancer survivor’s conference and meeting with some old friends down there. The trip was far too short, but we had awesome Tex Mex and I got to roll around in a scooter. There’s even a grainy cameraphone photo of my joy ride circulating on Facebook somewhere… Good times!

Most importantly, I connected with several other survivors and shared a lot of great stuff together with them. I also met a guy with a rare cancer called intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma which, oddly enough, is what my doctors originally suspected I had before my biopsy told them otherwise. As chance would have it, we both had the same surgeon at MD Anderson. Small world!

Back home, efforts to establish a group of young adult cancer survivors in the Greater Toronto Area are going well. Six of us met last week for a healthy dinner and became fast friends. We’re looking to build a strong core of YA cancer survivors here to help the newly diagnosed face the challenges of a cancer diagnosis and help them transition into cancer warriors and becoming their own best advocates. I am very excited about the direction our group is going and will have more to say about it at the end of the month (I hope! :))

Finally, our little Facebook group of patients with Fibrolamellar HCC has grown to 7 members! We have been joined recently by the widow of my hero Sarah – the inspiration for everything I do around survivorship – and our first French member. My French is admittedly quite poor, but luckily we have Google Translate to fill in the gaps. I was also contacted by a Fibrolamellar HCC researcher this week and look forward to sharing knowledge and working on solutions for our little community.